Wally Schumann

The Government of the Northwest Territories made a commitment in its mandate to increase exports by promoting NWT products to international markets. I rise today to update my colleagues on recent activities supporting this commitment.

I am pleased to inform Members that, following a long and concentrated lobby by our government and its partners, the Inuvialuit have been formally recognized under the Indigenous exception to the European Union’s seal products prohibition.

This means that the immense purchasing potential of the European Union is now open to Inuvialuit-harvested sealskins and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know how many creative ways I've got to say this. I said I believe our system is fine, it's working. The latest thing I can remember on the procurement side of things is we heard from businesses and industries in the Northwest Territories when we raised the sole-source amount from $5,000 to $25,000; but, like I said, I haven't had any complaints since I've been the Minister of Public Works.

As I've said, I believe we have a robust, great procurement system in the Northwest Territories. As long as I've been the Minister, I have not had any complaints around the procurement or the process in the Northwest Territories and I will not commit to that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I said, ITI cannot do this thing alone. We are working with Health and Department of Lands. In this particular question, the Department of Lands is a key department on moving this whole strategy forward. We are working with Lands on this issue. I believe they informed committee on a lot of the issues on moving forward with the regulations and stuff with that, and we will continue to work with that and be the partners with Lands, how we are going to figure this out to access more land for agriculture in the Northwest Territories.

As I said, this is a high-level strategy designed to encourage the sector to grow and move forward. There are costs to some of these action items that we see in the strategy. The department is presently working on them and calculating what those are going to cost moving forward. At present, we work with the federal government and the Growing Forward partnership with $1.2 million annually. We are trying to increase that. When we were down with our engagement with the federal government, I had a chance to meet with the Minister of Agriculture, and discuss this initiative moving forward, and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the department is going to be participating in that celebration, closing the final ice road. We will be doing a screening on a documentary called "The End of an Ice Age," which will be depicting the history of the ice road and its transition to an all-season road.

As I have mentioned before in the House in one of my Minister’s statements, there are three different celebrations going forward this year. The first one will be highlighting the completion of the Tuktoyaktuk ice road, which will be held on April 21st, and then there will be the grand opening of the highway on November 15th, the official opening of the highway, and then the final event would be in the summer of July 2018, which will be another opening, focusing on marketing travellers of the region on the highway.

Mr. Speaker, mining is the NWT’s biggest industry and the engine of our economy. For decades it has created opportunities for NWT businesses, provided Northerners with good, quality jobs, and contributed significantly to government revenues.

With rich reserves of minerals still to be tapped, there is every reason to expect mining will continue to provide the same kinds of benefits, but that won’t happen without an effort on our part, and our government remains committed to supporting an industry that is not just a part of our history, but which is also a part of our future.

In January, all...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won't get into the Economic Advisory Committee because we have already discussed that. I want to touch briefly on his comment on carbon tax and then around the government. This is a very complicated issue. He knows that. The government is having a very hard look at how we are going to implement that, or if we are going to implement it, or how we are going to implement it. There are a lot of discussions between us and Regular Members and the public on how that is moving forward, so I just want to get that out of the way because he threw it in there. It has nothing to do...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I want to clarify, going back to the previous question first. If you're doing this flight from Simpson through to Edmonton there is no AFI, air improvement fee, but there will be a fee on that ticket for the aeronautical fees which would be in the $7 to $9 range. So that's actually going to be that one fee that will be affecting someone flying through from a community.

To the Member's question if would I support a phased-in approach, I've made it quite clear a number of times, no, we do not support a phased-in approach. Thank you, Mr. Chair.